Several weeks after I wrote what could be described as emotion-driven defenses of California's approach to smart growth (in response to separate commentaries by Wendell Cox and Joel Kotkin), I was heartened to read a different, but complementary, perspective from Christopher B. Leinberger in this weekend's New York Times. It would appear that, when you run the numbers, smart growth might make sense after all. 

The staff of the Strategic Growth Council has issued recommendations for the awarding of a total of $20.7 million for Urban Greening Grants to communities throughout the state. Funded by Proposition 84, the Urban Greening Grants complement the Sustainable Communities Planning Grants, which are also awarded by SGC. This is the second of three rounds of funding, to total $90 million. 

With funding for planning growing ever more scarce around the state, some localities received a windfall last week from the Strategic Growth Council. SGC announced recommendations for its second round of Sustainable Communities Planning Grants. If the recommendations are adopted, a total of $24 million would be disbursed for 43 projects around the state.  

Against all odds, redevelopment isn't quite history yet in California. Some projects continue. Most cities are engaged in a long wind-down process that is consuming considerable time and attention. And the state legislature is considering a variety of options to revive redevelopment, or at least get it back on life support.

Over the past month, California cities have been learning the fate of countless redevelopment projects—touching everything from graffiti-removal programs to nine-figure transit-oriented developments to billion-dollar stadiums. For many, the news is not good – especially now that the California Department of Finance has gotten into the act. 

California's relentless, ever widening budget deficit has claimed another victim: redevelopment's affordable housing funds. 

Joel Kotkin is just thinking about the children. Too much, if you ask me.

As you may recall, two weeks ago it was Wendell Cox who used the Wall Street Journal opinion pages to herald the "war" that California's urban areas are launching on the suburbs. 

Of California's roughly 37 million people, not a single one of them remembers a time when the state was not growing at a seemingly out-of-control pace. With the exception of the Depression and World War II years, our state has tripped over itself to build homes, roads, and entire cities nearly from scratch. We bulldozed one patch of desert, farmland, or chaparral only to find the surveyors marking up the next plot. It's been exhilarating, but also exhausting. 

And, according to analysis of the latest Census data, it may be coming to an end. 

State Controller John Chiang sent what many cities consider to be an ominous letter, advising them to hand over assets that they may have acquired from redevelopment agencies. The letter, dated April 20, instructs cities, counties, and other agencies to cast a wide net to identify assets that may have been improperly transfered following the January 1, 2011 effective date of AB 1X 26, the bill that calls for the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and liquidation of their assets. 

The fate of thousands of would-be redevelopment projects now rests in the very busy hands of the California Department of Finance. Working with an augmented crew, the department has so far received roughly 200 Recognized Obligation Payment Schedules (ROPS) and has so far sent back roughly 20 for review by their respective successor agencies. Letters such as these (pdf) have gone out to those cities so that they can amend their ROPS or justify the listed expenditures.